Raincheck
by pdragon76
Summary: Sam's eyes are on the hourglass.  And it should be making Dean very nervous.  Spoilers through AHBL2.


**Disclaimer: All things Supernatural belong to Kripke and not me. **

Dean passed the white motel towel over the steamed mirror. He stepped up close and lifted his left arm, tested the edges of the gash across his ribs with his fingers. Now that he was clean it wasn't as bad as it had felt when they left the cemetery. It had stopped bleeding and although it promised to add another whisper white line to his list of scars, it didn't need any stitches. Wouldn't stop it being a pain in the ass for a few days though, he knew. It was in one of those sweet spots that was going to open up every time he twisted. Or stood up. Sat down. Turned around. Got in or out of the car. Or say, demon hunted in general. But it wasn't actually that painful. He dug the antiseptic out of the first aid kit on the vanity and leant forward over the sink as he administered a generous slosh over the cut straight from the bottle. _Scratch that. It hurt plenty._ He bounced a little on his toes, winced at his reflection while the burn receded to a dull throb. Then he sponged the cut dry with a fresh towel and eased on a clean t-shirt.

It'd been nearly a week since Sam had mentioned it. Not that Dean was complaining. More like throwing internal Praise-the-Damn-Lord parties. But it couldn't last. He'd been distracted for the last couple of days – getting the grave wrong and then finding the right _town _(university education, _my ass_) – but it was coming. He could almost feel it through the bathroom door.

When it came down to it, he'd been on his feet for the better part of the last three days and he was just too tired to hear it tonight. So when Sam started up as he came out of the bathroom, Dean took the two extra steps to the left on his way to his waiting bed and shoved his brother hard, palm against his chest, so that he fell back awkwardly onto his own bed.

'Shut up and go to sleep, Sammy.'

He didn't say it loud. He wasn't angry. He just didn't want to talk about it, or think about it. There's a point beyond tired, where exhaustion and a complete physical breakdown meet over beers…They were on their sixth round and Dean wasn't sure any longer who was picking up the tab. The crappy motel mattress felt so good it made him want to cry. Man, oh man, he was tired.

Sam hadn't stayed down, though. He was piss-farting about at the kitchenette counter, pointlessly shifting things around loud enough so that Dean knew he was mad. But he was also relying on the light from the lamp next to Dean's bed so when he reached across his chest (_mistake_, growled his ribs) and shut the thing off he plunged them both into darkness.

'Dean.'

'Sam.'

'Can you turn the damn light back on?'

Dean draped his arm over his forehead. _For fuck's sake…_

'No. Stop pansy-assing around and get some sleep.'

He could hear the gravel and exhaustion in the words as they left him, hoped it wasn't lost on his brother. Dean lay there silently and counted off the seconds of Sam's cooling temper. He couldn't suppress the weary sigh of relief as the springs of Sam's bed announced the end to his ridiculous and poorly lit stand-off. For a long minute, it seemed as though Sam was going to take an uncharacteristic dive into the what's-good-for-you tub and leave him alone.

But it was too much to hope for.

'Four weeks, Dean.'

As if he didn't know. Sam Winchester, you had to hand it to the guy. You give him a year and he could count it down to stumps. Every last fucking second.

He thought about saying something. _No shit_, or _Thank you Captain Obvious._ It occurred to him that he should have had cards printed, the day they left the Yellow Eyed Demon in the graveyard.

_**Dear Sam Glass-Half-Empty Winchester.**_

_**Thanks Again For Yet Another **_

_**Reminder Of My Impending **_

_**Descent Into Hell.**_

Business card size, with tiny writing. He could have just handed them to him, every fucking day, and saved himself a Goodyear Blimp's worth of air.

Tonight he didn't say anything at all. He just took a deep breath and let it out slow through his teeth. Quietly, so Sam couldn't hear it and think of something else to say. For a second - just a second – those three words lit up a magnesium-bright flare of anger and he wasn't tired anymore. But sleep was a funny thing. It didn't matter how hard you ran from it, it got you in the end. It was like the black dog waiting in the wings. Relentless and unconquerable.

Dean dreamt of Thanksgiving, of all the stupid, messed up things to dream about.

_When he was fourteen, their dad holed them up for Thanksgiving in a friend's cabin. He'd promised Dean a proper Thanksgiving, turkey and everything. Dean had shrugged off his father's enthusiasm with what he recalled as some fairly standard teenage grunts and a carefully veiled 'Whatever.' But secretly he'd been looking forward to the pretense at normalcy, the three of them together, sharing a meal like a proper family. Their dad had baked the shit of that turkey all day long. Out beside the lake he'd helped Sam build a snowman and Dean had scrawled a few expletives into the back of its head because it made Sam laugh. Then they'd surfed an old piece of iron down the hill behind the cabin until their father figured out what they were doing and put a stop to it before any hands got cut off. He'd been a little too late, and Dean had hid the ugly slice across his palm for the next week while it healed. By late afternoon, the walls of his stomach had been turning in on themselves at the thought of that turkey baking away, and when they finally gathered around the oven in the cramped kitchen and their dad had opened the door: __**there was no goddamn turkey**__. Just the oil and herbs floating around in the bottom of the tray. When their demon-busting father had got past his initial assumption that something supernatural had happened, he realized he'd simply forgotten to take the damn bird out of the freezer. After a short unreadable silence, he'd roared with laughter as if it was the funniest thing that had ever happened to this family. But it wasn't. Not by a long shot. Dean still remembered standing there in that kitchen, Sam's hopeful face looking up at him, thinking __**what the fuck are we going to eat now, the receipt from the Department of Social Services Child Welfare Complaint I'm about to lodge? **__To Dean that day still felt like a forty foot neon sign flashing __**NEVER **__to his unasked question of when they were going to cut a break and play normal for five goddamn seconds. _

_That break had passed them by faster than the speed of sound. Dean had been tensed for the almighty telltale cracking of the air in its wake ever since. Maybe this was it. Maybe the sonic boom was going to be black and dog shaped and he was going to hear it for the rest of eternity. _

_Either way it was never going to be over. And in four weeks it was never going to be over on a whole new scale._

_o o o o o o o o o o _

The nightmares had already begun. You'd think, with this kind of deadline hanging over your head, you'd have them from day one. But he hadn't. Truth is, he'd slept fine right up until the last couple of weeks. He was pretty sure Sam had spent his share of sleepless nights wondering how on earth he could snore up a storm, but no surprises there. They were wired differently on that front. Dean didn't worry about things he couldn't control. He didn't see the point. Besides, Sam had that base covered for the both of them. In fact, he had _every_ base loaded, and he was smacking balls consistently out of the park just to keep the worry runs on the board.

But in the last couple of weeks, the black dog had snuck in a back door left propped open in Dean's subconscious. The dreams were vivid, and graphic, and he wasn't entirely sure if they were a construct of his own panicked mind or a preternatural precursor to the actual event. Maybe this hound was the crowd warmer, Hell's Rodeo Clown. He'd woken in a mild panic a couple of nights, hands grappling at what he fully expected to be his shredded chest. He was pretty sure he'd woken Sam both times and Dean was secretly grateful that he'd pretended to still be asleep.

Dean Winchester was scared. Gut-wrenchingly, mind-numbingly, spend-the-rest-of-eternity-baking-in-the-Pit-of-Hades scared. Dean knew it. Sam knew it. Dean knew that Sam knew. And Sam knew that Dean knew that he knew.

It sat between them in the Impala the next morning, like an elephant making breakfast pancakes in a _'Kiss the Chef'_ apron.

'So, where are we headed?' Dean flattened the map against the steering wheel, accidentally sounded the horn and jumped. He gave his brother an apologetic grimace but Sam didn't look up from his laptop.

'You can put that away, I got it here. Take the highway north.'

'No probs, Navman.' Dean made a go of folding the map correctly and decided he didn't have time _(3 weeks, 6 days and 18 hours…)_ for that kind of shit. So he screwed it into a rough square shape and tossed it over his shoulder into the backseat. Sam watched it sail over with a shake of his head.

'You know, I'm just gonna be fishing that out later.'

Dean gave him a bright smile. 'Yep.'

'So stop throwing your trash back there.'

'I don't throw trash back there,' Dean objected indignantly.

'Oh no?' Sam propped the laptop on the dash and twisted back over the seat, levering off his knee to reach the floor behind Dean. He came back up with the map and a handful of rubbish. He held the items up for Dean's scrutiny as he went through them.

'Let's see: chocolate bar wrapper-

'-yours-'

'- gas receipt, page from that library book I asked you _not_ to rip out…' Sam smoothed a crinkled piece of orange paper against his thigh.

'FUCK OFF. THIS JOB BLOWS,' Sam read out loud. He gave his brother a wordless, questioning look. Dean tapped the steering wheel impatiently, his arching eyebrow in danger of leaving his head entirely.

'What? You left me in the car for _four hours_. That job did blow.'

'Just for the record, when you're making a crossword, you gotta spread some of those black boxes around-'

'-fuck off-'

'-and you gotta use actual words.'

'You done?'

Sam held up an acquiescent hand as Dean's expression morphed from impatient to stone cold murderous.

'I'm just saying, you're a slob is all.'

Dean started up the car, rubbed the steering wheel affectionately. 'You hear that baby, you're gonna be so _**clean**_ when I'm gone.'

It was a reflex. Hardly even required any _effort_ on his behalf, and he instantly regretted the bypassed pitstop between brain and vocalization. Dean risked a sideways glance at Sam and found him fuming darkly and predictably in his general direction.

'It was a joke, Sam.'

Sam shook his head a little, looked away out the window.

'Whatever, man.'

Dean hit the gas as they left the motel car park, hung a right back onto the highway a little too fast so the back end swung out.

'Geez Sam, crack a _fuckin' _smile.'

_o o o o o o o o o o_

They stopped around lunchtime in a lakeside town where a billboard dubiously boasted _Best Fishing in the USA_. Dean was discovering why the sign hadn't said _Best Cheeseburgers in the USA _when Sam came back from the payphone near the counter of the diner and plonked down opposite him.

'So I said we'd be there by five.'

Dean checked his watch and inadvertently dumped half the contents of his burger back onto his plate.

'Okay,' he agreed, mouth full. Sam bunched his forehead.

'You know, I can hear your arteries thickening from here.'

Dean's eyes widened. 'Super hearing _and_ visions? Dude, we need to get you a cape.' He pointed at the diner counter. 'You gonna sit there looking whiney or are you gonna order something?'

Sam made a face at Dean's plate. 'Not really that hungry.'

Dean froze mid-chew, rolled his eyes and shook his head. 'Whatever you say. So where'd you find this guy?'

'Girl. Name's Anna Petrice. Through that hoodoo site I told you about.'

'The hoodoo site? The one with the recipes for what to do with your leftover _**powdered cat**_?' He screwed up his nose. 'Sam, that site was fucked up, man. It was right up there with Satanists R Us and their semen-eating spells.'

Sam couldn't suppress a chuckle at the memory.

'Yeah, that was five kinds of wrong. But no, this girl, she wasn't on the site. Someone on the chatroom put me on to her. She sounds legit, man. She certainly knows a lot about these crossroad deals.'

Dean nodded vaguely. He was struck with an invasive memory of his mouth pressed against the demon's lips, her tongue against his. Two short sharp seconds later he was thinking about the wound Jake's blade had left in Sam's back, the pallid grey of his slack face against the bedspread at Bobby's. Dean slapped the rest of his cheeseburger back onto the plate, his appetite suddenly gone. For an elongated half minute, he struggled with a persuasive urge to hurl everything right back up onto the plate. But Sam would have a field day with that. It'd be three weeks, six days of endless puke jokes. He didn't have the…well, stomach for it. He took a swig of soda instead, swallowed hard.

'Dean?' He could tell by the tone it was the second time he'd said it. He blinked at his brother.

'What?'

'I said – are you alright?'

Dean nodded. 'Yeah, I'm fine.' Sam appeared unconvinced.

'You kinda zoned out there for a second.' He jutted his chin towards Dean's jacket. 'You dealt with cut in your side, right? I clean forgot to look at it.' Sam looked like he was preparing for an afternoon of self-flagellation.

Dean stamped down on it quick. 'It's fine, just a scratch.' He shook his head dismissively.

'Sure? Cause if it gets infected...'

'Quit with the mom routine, Sam. There's nothing wrong with me.' _Apart from you died, and then I tongued a demon and now I have to go to Hell. _

They sat in silence for a long minute.

'I don't know, Sam,' Dean said finally, needing to fill the dead air. 'This feels like thin ice. That demon was pretty specific. I try and weasel out of this, you're back to pushing up the daisies in head-spinning style.'

'Exactly. If _**you **_try and weasel out of it. She didn't say anything about _**me**_ weaseling _**you**_ out of it. You're just along for the ride, right?'

'Semantics, Sam. You wanna ask the question, go right ahead, but you gotta promise me you don't do anything without running it by me first, right?'

Sam saluted. 'Scout's honor.'

He rubbed the tops of his thighs under the table. He wanted to get going. And since it was the first time Dean had seen him smile all day, he downed the last of his drink and obliged.

'Alright bitch, let's get outta here.'

_o o o o o o o o o o_

Back on the road Dean's thoughts drifted to the woman standing in front of him at the diner counter. Not that she'd been hot. _God no, she must have been, what, like about 60?_ But he'd overheard her talking about the Sunday dinner she had planned with the chick working the register. _Now the blonde behind the cashie…she'd been okay. Not these-jeans-are-getting-kinda-uncomfortable-hot but definitely worth a hit and run on their way back south tonight. If he could convince Sam to stop there again. Nah, Sammy would nix it. Pansy-ass is gonna go all Nazi about the deep fried everything and make us hole up in Vegetable Town, USA till all I wanna eat is a bullet. It's worse than traveling with a fuckin' VEGETARIAN. _

'Jesus, Dean - you look like you're driving through brains over there. What's with the face?'

Caught red-handed in the middle of a mental Sam-bashing, Dean panicked.

'I hate vegetarians,' he blurted.

Sam barked off a laugh, scratched the back of his head. 'Okay. Random.'

'No, it's just-' Dean tried and failed to connect the thought to something external to the car or his warped internal tangents 'Never mind.'

In the ensuing silence he tried to recall how he'd gotten to hating vegetarians and came back to the woman with her story of Sunday dinner. He'd felt a pang of resentment, a petulant acknowledgement of an injustice perpetrated. _Her_ kids got a family dinner. What were they gonna get on Sunday night? He didn't know yet. But chances were dinner wasn't on the list. Grave desecration, an exorcism maybe. Perhaps they'd get lucky and have a night off, be lazing around on armchairs that smelled vaguely like the 37 000 other people that had sat in them in some motel room. If they were unlucky, he'd be stitching up Sam's face or Sam'd be digging some foreign matter out of him with a pair of tweezers in a motel bathroom (_God please_, _not his upper thigh like that time in Baton Rouge when Sam made all the ass jokes_). Maybe he'd be getting drunk, and if so it might follow that he'd be getting laid _(okay, so that didn't sound so bad, chalk one up for Camp Dean)_.

The dumb thing was he didn't even want that roast or that mint sauce or that perfect family sitting round the perfectly made table with the perfect shiny silverware.

He just wanted an option. Right now it seemed like he was doing 80mph towards his last one, and more than anything he wished he could turn the Impala around and head for the one thing he didn't have and the two people who would never be there again.

He wanted to go home. He wanted Mom and Dad. He especially wanted someone to take the enormous weight of responsibility for this mess off both their shoulders. He wanted Sam to lose that look he'd had for the last 338 days, like his alarm clock was set for four in the morning and he couldn't get to sleep. He wanted to know Sam was taken care of, that he wasn't about to leave him alone with this life and this job and this…god, _all of this_. He wanted to hear that everything was going to be okay. It wasn't. He knew that. But he wanted to hear someone else say it. He wanted to hear someone believe it.

Because at the end of this highway, things weren't going to be any different than they were last month, or the one before that, or the one before that. Dean could feel it in his bones like a dull ache. Sure, he was scared. But he made a deal, fair and square. And no regrets. He'd have done it the same, fifty times over. Truth was, he'd have made worse deals, if it had come to it. It was simply time to pay up. It didn't get any plainer than that.

_o o o o o o o o o o_

It looked like an ordinary farmyard cottage. A few miles past a picturesque river crossing, the house was nestled back from the road at the end of a short driveway. The front porch shaded a white weatherboard exterior. The garden was tended and neat, a few of the rosebushes were flowering and an old car tire hung from the branch of an expansive willow to the left of the porch.

'This is it?' Dean asked as he pulled up at the gate. Sam squinted up the drive at the house.

'I guess so.'

'You see any _Home is where the hoodoo is _signs hanging anywhere?'

'No, but there's no _Moron_ taped to your forehead either, so…' Sam raised his eyebrows and Dean waggled his hand between them.

'Not bad, Sam. Not bad.' He flicked a finger at the windshield. 'You gonna get that gate or are we waiting for her to open it with the power of her hoodoo mind.'

'No, I got it.' Sam laughed, and Dean didn't fight the pull at the edges of his own mouth.

It was childish, but Dean couldn't resist hitting the gas as Sam went for the door after closing the gate. It was still childish, bordering on inane, when he did it a second time. But it made him laugh and it pissed Sam off, which was as close to the normal state of affairs as they had been in a while. When he did it a third time and Sam thumped the roof of the Impala in frustration, Dean threw back his head and laughed out loud, one arm stretched across the bench seat and the other draped lazily over the steering wheel. He was still chuckling when he got out of the car.

'You're a jerk.' Sam stalked past the car and took the stairs to the porch. Dean wiped the smile off his lips with his thumb, jogged up the stairs behind his brother and clapped him on the back.

'Yes, I am.'

The Anna Petrice who greeted them at the door was young, dark haired and attractive. She was about as far from what either of the boys had imagined as you could possibly get. Without her being, say, a kettle.

'Sam, Dean, come on in. You boys are right on time.'

Dean transformed from reluctant attendee to charming and enthusiastic house guest in less than two seconds flat. He flashed his most charismatic smile, eliciting a cringe from Sam.

'Well, I have a policy about keeping beautiful women waiting.'

Anna took the hand he offered and volleyed an equally flirtatious smirk.

'Oh, I bet you do,' she purred.

It was a modest cottage, open plan with two rooms off the far wall. Sam guessed the bedroom and the bathroom. The kitchen counter against the eastern wall had a pair of ceramic pigs on it, and tacky pumpkin. It looked more like a setting for the next Country Women's Association Meeting than the residence of a hoodoo practitioner. When Sam returned his attention to Anna Petrice, he found her and Dean still locked in a pseudo-sexual stare-off. He coughed loudly.

'So…'

Dean snapped his fingers. 'Right! Why don't I leave you two to chat and I'll be…' he looked around the small room, pointed to a bookcase against the closest wall, '….over here?'

Anna raised an eyebrow at him. 'Knock yourself out.'

The bookcase was barely three feet from where he'd been standing but Dean had no intention of leaving the room. He knew Sam felt the weight of this countdown as vividly as he did, and he wasn't going to let him do anything stupid just because they were scrambling out of control down the last few feet of the cliff face. He scanned the bookcase, noting the absolute lack of occult titles, moved on to checking out the kick knacks on the shelves. Why didn't this woman have any pictures around the joint? Everyone had pictures in their living room, didn't they? He tried to think of the last living room he'd stood in. He didn't have one, but he was pretty sure he'd have pictures in it if he did. He didn't know what they'd be of, but he'd have pictures. And no sigils, no markings, no nothing. What kinda hoodoo witch was this chick?

'So you have a problem you'd like me to help you with?' Anna crossed her arms and faced Sam.

He was studying her intently. When he spoke, Dean realized none of his observations had been lost on his brother either.

'Look, don't take this the wrong way, but you don't strike me as the hoodoo type. I mean, even the house…I'd expect to see…I don't know, something.'

'I never said I practiced hoodoo, Sam.'

She stepped forward, and the light caught her eyes through the front window long enough for Dean to see it. That familiar red rolling behind the iris. Just for a fraction of a second. And it all made sense now. The long dark hair, the perfect features, that vague feeling he recognized her. Not necessarily _**her**_, but _**who**_ she was. The dark sexual energy he had mistaken for….okay, he hadn't mistaken it for anything. It was just THERE.

'Holy crap, it's you.' Dean rocked back on his heels a little. 'I still got four weeks. You got that black dog back there, Bitch, you better keep him on a leash.'

Sam gave his brother a confused shake of the head. 'What?'

Dean swiveled at the hips, winked at his brother. 'Well researched. Bang up job.'

Sam had clearly ordered a plate of Stupid back at that diner, unbeknownst to Dean. He was going to have to spell it out for him.

'Crossroads demon, Sammy. You raised the crossroads demon.'

'No, I didn't. I haven't summoned anything.' Sam shifted from one foot to the other. He shook his head at the woman in front of him. 'I didn't summon you.'

Anna took a step towards Dean and he moved instinctively backwards. _Damn it, you fucking pussy._ Her smile was predatory, but there was mischief there too. First thing Dean was gonna do when they left here? Get himself a fold up devil's trap. Pocket sized. Like those camping ponchos. First two times? Fine, he'd invited her to the party. But now this bitch was _**clearly **_stalking him.

'Think about it, boys. There's a lot of things don't need raising since that little episode in Wyoming. Just think of me as your friendly local broker.'

Dean gave Sam a pointed look. 'Fan-fucking-tastic. There goes the neighborhood. This is your big idea? Fix the shark bite with a dip in the ocean at dusk, Sam?'

Sam shook his head earnestly. 'Dean, you gotta believe me – I had no idea.'

'Your brother was right to bring you here. He's absolutely correct. I'm the only person who might be able to help you.'

Dean narrowed his eyes, a bitter smile twitching on his lips. 'Ah, two things: (1) You're not a person, and (2) Why the fuck would I ask you for help?'

'_**You**_ can't.' She lifted a lazy finger towards Sam. 'But _**he**_ might be able to.'

'My brother's not asking you anything.'

He said it and he meant it, but Dean felt a tiny involuntary bloom in his chest, a mercurial sliver of hope rising. He'd felt it before, the other times they'd arrived on the doorstep of Sam's-gonna-fix-it. He knew better than to trust it, give it purchase.

'So, you want to keep with the talky-talky, or should we just go ahead and send you straight back to hell?' Dean raised his eyebrows expectantly. 'Cause, you know – ladies choice.'

The smile he flashed her was fleeting and humorless, and disappeared entirely when she swept a hand towards the door and said: 'After you.'

Three hundred and thirty eight days of swallowed rage bubbled visibly beneath Dean's carefully controlled façade. His was aware of his hands shaking, and wondered if anything beside curling his fingers around the porcelain smooth skin of her neck was going to still them.

'You know what – you've already got a couple of deals under your belt, Sunshine. I think it's time you stood aside and let your little brother play with the Monopoly money.' Anna tilted her face to catch Sam's eye.

_Yep. I'm definitely gonna have to strangle this bitch. _

'Why don't you come over here, Sweetie?'

Dean pivoted on his heel, grabbed Sam's arm as he headed for the door. 'We're leaving.'

Sam allowed himself to be guided to the door but planted his feet when Dean tried to shove him through it.

'Dean, wait! She said she can help!' he hissed.

Dean felt the flush in his cheeks and gritted his teeth against it, blinked long. A year. Seemed like a decent stretch, when you had 365 days. But standing here on the pointy end, well…it seemed like 27 days and 7 hours.

He had a bible studies moment, David asking God when he was going to die. _Where the fuck did that come from_? What was it God was supposed to have said? _No man may know the measure of his days._ Fucking amen to that. Dean was absolutely down with that decision making process. Knowing the measure of your days sucked donkey-sized cock. But it didn't mean he got to drag his stupid sorry-for-himself brother butt-first into a demon ass-fucking.

In four weeks nothing he did was going to matter; nothing good, nothing righteous, nothing petty, nothing evil. But right now… especially right now… it all had to matter.

'Sam, she's a demon. The only thing she has to offer either of us is another deal. You got anything you're willing to bring to the table? 'Cause I'm already over the demonic barrel, if you catch my drift. We're not exactly chip-heavy this deck.' Dean jammed his hand into his jacket pocket, searching for the car keys.

'We at least have to listen to what she has to say.'

Sam's face was earnest, pleading. He was playing the puppy eyes for all he was worth. Dean knew he was going to have to pull the baseball bat out on those puppies any minute now and do what had to be done to get them out of that house with Sam's soul debt-free. _And what the fuck was that look on his face? _There was something charged about the Sam standing in front of him, something electrified like a base jumper poised atop the Empire State building. Dean felt a coil of dread unfurl in his gut. He kick-started his forward thinker and spent a few seconds slaloming through the different possibilities. It didn't matter which way he leaned, he still came hard up against the same frightening realization.

Sam had a plan.

Dean couldn't for the life of him imagine what it was, and that terrified him. More than the countdown, more than the black dog. More than…. well, hell actually. He lifted a hand to Sam's shoulder and gripped it hard, looked him in the eye.

'Got a plan, little brother?'

'Dean…' Sam trailed off, tried to avert his gaze but Dean clapped a palm to his brother's cheek and brought his eyes back to his own. _No skiving Sammy. You tell it and you tell it straight._

'You got something to offer that bitch? You stupid enough to trade yourself for me?'

'I wouldn't do that to you, you asshole!' Sam's voice was heated, and Dean took the brunt of the accusation behind it square on the chin. Sam was alive. He could call him whatever he wanted. That was just fine by him.

Dean gave him a searching look. He was telling the truth. But he had something. Sam had something to bring to the table in there, and whatever it was, he was scared. Dean could see it in his eyes. Right there beside the bright little impossibility of him revealing why.

'Okay, you don't have to tell me. Doesn't matter.' He looked back at Anna, patted his pockets. Where the hell were his keys?

'What? Dean, what?' Sam was confused by his sudden step down. Dean turned back to him, pointed a finger in his face.

'You're scared, Sam, I can see it. God, I can _smell_ it. Whatever deal you think you're about to make, you're not making it.' Dean shook his head, made a move to herd him through the door. 'No way. No dice Sammy. We walk.'

And then Sam exploded.

He yanked Dean hard out onto the porch and slammed the door between Anna and them. Dean was midway through the formation of a confused yelp when Sam hauled him up against the weatherboard to the right of the door and pinned him there with his forearm. Dean winced, felt the pull at the gash across his ribs. He hung there compliantly, his lips moving through the start of half a dozen smart-ass remarks as he thought better of them all.

Sam lost his temper all the time. Angry Sam was a daily event, an invitation for envelope-pushing and shit-stirring. But Sam throw-your-ass-against-the-wall mad? Well, you waited that dude out and played along.

'**You**,' Sam began through his teeth, eyes dark and fiery, 'You don't get to say **no**, Dean.'

If he'd shouted it, Dean might have shouted back, crossed his palms up between them and pushed, deposited his brother over the other side of the porch. But there was something about the low, shaky timbre of Sam's voice that stood him down. It was all wounded animal and it collapsed something in Dean's chest, twitched the corner of his mouth involuntarily. He started to say eas_y_, but Sam leant his weight forward through his arm and that shut him up again.

'You listen to my no, Dean? After Cold Oak? Back at Bobby's?'

Dean felt his baseline resistance to Sam's assault tighten through his back. If this little shit, this lanky little arse monkey, _**his little brother**_ was gonna start up with that _**guano**_ again then it was straight back to no holds barred. Throw-your-ass-against-the-wall mad or not, Dean was happy to dance that one out like Gene-fucking-Kelly right here on this porch. Sam must have seen the ice form in his eyes because he loosened his grip on the front of Dean's shirt and took what might have passed for a breath. He finally stepped back, pointed at the door.

'I'm going in there to talk to her. And you're gonna wait in the car.'

Sam's voice was a flat line, crossing from A to B, with no deviation. This was strictly as the crow flies. Dean knew he wasn't entertaining any other options. At the risk of getting intimate with the weatherboard again, he stepped between his brother and the door and fished in his pocket for a final ace.

'Sam, wait. We'll toss for it. Heads, you walk straight in there and I go sit in the car. Tails, you at least give me a chance to talk you out of this.'

He held up the coin. 'Please, man.'

He knew he sounded desperate. He was. If he couldn't get Sam off that porch with a coin toss he was going to have to do it the old fashioned way. And while he was reasonably sure he could knock his brother into next week given the opportunity and inclination (both fast approaching Station _**RightHereRightNow**_), he'd rather win a coin toss and sass it out here on the porch like a sally. So when Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, shook his head, and tapped out a cipher of resignation on his thigh, Dean sighed in relief.

'Tails, we talk,' he repeated as he sent the coin into the air.

Sam could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen his brother caught off guard. He'd have to add this to the list. Dean didn't even have time to react. Sam tensed the small of his back, telegraphed out with a perfect right jab and sent Dean staggering backwards. The coin bounced off the boards and skittered out of sight over the top of the steps. Dean hit the porch on his hip, hand raised to his already bleeding nose, his face a mix of surprise and anger. Growing anger. _Dear God_, he was angry and Sam felt a blind stab of sibling panic at the scope of the payback he was about to have coming to him.

'What the _**fuck**_?' Dean had got his elbow under him, was starting to lever himself up.

Sam had a sudden flash of genius, a brilliant epiphany. He knew how he was gonna get out of this when Dean came to. He remembered Dean, bouncing on his toes outside the cabin in Red Lodge where they had left Gordon.

_Sam, clock me one_, he'd said. _Come on, I won't even hit you back. Let's go_.

And Sam had taken a raincheck Oh, there IS a God. He'd taken a raincheck.

He hooked back his elbow. There wasn't time to explain. He could do that later.

'Sorry, man.'

He brought his fist down straight from the shoulder, belted Dean hard in the temple. And this time he stayed down. Sam shook the sting out of his knuckles (god_**damn**_ his brother had a hard head) and squatted to grip the front of his shirt. Rocking back on his heels, he hauled Dean's dead weight upwards with a grunt. Raincheck or no raincheck, his brother was going to make him regret this. But right now - when it came to waiting patiently in a car?

Dean did his best work unconscious.

skd © 2007


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